BJP engaged global information technology firms, including SAP and Oracle for keeping up with real time analysis on social media and partnered InMobi.

BANGALORE/MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) found an invisible hand in technology even as Narendra Modi spearheaded the campaign to help the right-wing party win a historic mandate in the just concluded federal elections.

BJP engaged global information technology firms, including SAP and Oracle for keeping up with real time analysis on social media and partnered InMobi under which the Indian start-up “carpet bombed” the mobile users with profiles of the party candidates. German software firm SAP enabled the BJP social media team to stay digitally connected through multiple social networking platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

An internal email from Mathew Thomas, vice-president Strategic Industries, SAP Indian Sub-continent, congratulated the SAP Labs team members in India, saying: “SAP India helped BJP with the Social Media Analytics division helping the party successfully win and complete their “mission 272+” vision in the just completed federal elections in India”.

“Designing a large-scale yet agile social strategy for BJP was a critical component for success in the elections and this necessitated campaign managers and party leaders to embrace social technology in an engaging and effective manner,” the email further quotes Thomas.

Unlike earlier elections, BJP stood apart as they marshalled technocrats into their team to add more bite to their campaign and spot trends to react faster than its arch rival, the Indian National Congress. A spokesperson for SAP declined to comment for the story.

However, a senior executive of the company said the company competed against IBM, Salesforce and Adobe to win the contract. SAP helped Bharatiya Janata Party’s backroom boys to create real-time summary reports and send it to higher leadership for quick insight.

Instances such as the flip flop in the induction of Pramod Muthalik, the controversial Sri Ram Sene chief, into BJP and the quick reflex ouster is to be seen in that context. The feedback was quick and the party quickly made amends after an outcry in the social media circles. React fast with controversies -get sound bites for speakers in News Channels in Real Time.

SAP, the German software firm, over the years has made its mark in enterprise resource solutions. In the current scenario, it did political event tracking and generated valuable inputs for campaigns. It also helped the party to focus on influencer ranking, by identifying top influencers, people’s thoughts on issues such as foreign direct investment and inflation on social media. All the technology companies told ET that 2014 elections is the first time that technology played such a “decisive” role in the outcome of the polls.

Interestingly, the three companies said both national and regional parties looked at mobile advertising as a medium. Using mobile advertising technology maker, InMobi’s database, political parties, including BJP, were able to target the right user for the right content and influence opinions.

“Mobile has grown exponentially and is the medium to watch out for,” said Atul Satija, vice-president, Revenue & Operations, InMobi. “There are 900 million mobile devices, with 100 million connected to the Internet. This allows targeted advertising by building native content. For example, InMobi ran specific spots advertising Bharatiya Janata Party ’s policies on education, women’s safety,” said Satija.

The unique thing about these elections was both national parties as well as regional parties looked at mobile advertising as a medium. “We achieved our Mission 272+ and your team played a very important role in executing our social media plans,” wrote Arvind Gupta, National Head Information and Technology BJP. Bharatiya Janata Party maintains that it “engaged with technology leaders in respective fields to keep up with trends in real time” and it helped the party reach a decisive mandate.